Review/Film;
When a Not-So-Bad Girl Turns Very, Very Bad

By JANET MASLIN

Published: March 31, 1989

LEAD: Heather is the name of choice at Westerburg High School, the name that signifies power, popularity and unlimited license to make mischief. The rules of the game are established in an early scene in ''Heathers,'' in which a trio of girls named Heather cruise the school cafeteria with a reluctant handmaiden named Veronica (Winona Ryder) in tow.

Heather is the name of choice at Westerburg High School, the name that signifies power, popularity and unlimited license to make mischief. The rules of the game are established in an early scene in ''Heathers,'' in which a trio of girls named Heather cruise the school cafeteria with a reluctant handmaiden named Veronica (Winona Ryder) in tow. They taunt some classmates, flirt with others, compliment others on their clothes. This sequence has a bright look, a buoyant style and an utterly vicious spirit, giving ''Heathers'' the air of a demonic sitcom.

''Heathers,'' a first feature directed by Michael Lehmann, is as snappy and assured as it is mean-spirited. Its originality extends well beyond the limits of ordinary high school histrionics and into the realm of the genuinely perverse. And for as long as Mr. Lehmann and the screenwriter, Daniel Waters, have the temerity to sustain the film's bracingly nasty tone, ''Heathers'' is legitimately startling. As one of the film's characters puts it, ''The extreme always seems to make an impression.''

''Heathers,'' which opens today at Loews New York Twin and other theaters, shares Veronica's misgivings about the three beautiful, bitchy Heathers (Shannen Doherty, Kim Walker and Lisanne Falk) and their collective modus operandi. Veronica, who wears a monocle as she scribbles furious little diary entries about the Heathers' exploits, doesn't much like her friends' predilection for dirty tricks, but she goes along with them out of a sense of obligation. It takes a mysterious gun-toting newcomer named J. D. (Christian Slater) to nudge Veronica into a different set of activities altogether.

The diabolical J. D., played by Mr. Slater as an exact teen-age replica of Jack Nicholson, goads Veronica into playing out her little resentments against the other girls. When the wickedest of the Heathers, Heather Chandler (Miss Walker), pushes Veronica too far, J. D. helps her get even. He suggests slipping Heather a drink laced with kitchen cleaner, and he draws upon Veronica's proven talents as a forger to craft the appropriate suicide message. ''People think just because you're beautiful and popular, life is easy and fun,'' Heather/Veronica writes. ''No one understood that I had feelings too.'' Because this note makes use of the word ''myriad,'' the teachers at Westerburg are very much impressed.

Exhilarated by this murderous prank, J. D. and Veronica raise the ante. So Westerburg's next two teen-age ''suicides'' are a pair of lame-brained football heroes against whom Veronica has a valid grudge. J. D., who likes planting appropriate props at the scenes of these crimes, leaves a bottle of mineral water this time, maintaining that in Ohio this constitutes strong evidence that the two football players were in love. It is at about this point that the gorgeous, petulant Veronica begins to wonder just what is going on.

And it's at about this point that the film loses its nerve, demanding that Veronica wake up to the awfulness of what J. D. has done. Since he has largely acted on her half-conscious wishes, this turnabout isn't entirely convincing, and it undermines the film's earlier relentlessness. ''Heathers'' finally re-establishes Veronica as a nice normal girl, but it does this at the expense of its earlier toughness. In any case, the film's hard-edged satire lasts a long while before it finally winds down.

Mr. Lehmann's spiky sensibility is evident in the film's jauntily sardonic style and in its cast of clever and attractive young actors. Miss Ryder, in particular, manages to be both stunning and sympathetic as the watchful Veronica, and she has the glamorous presence of a promising new star. Miss Walker makes the meanest Heather suitably monstrous, and Mr. Slater is effectively insinuating in a role that needn't have been so narrow. Too often, J. D.'s function is only to smirk at Veronica and egg her on.